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Excerpt from "Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Berlin Crisis, July 25, 1961"

Published in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961

"It would be a mistake for others to look upon Berlin, because of its location, as a tempting target. The United States is there; the United Kingdom and France are there; the pledge of NATO is there—and the people of Berlin are there. It is as secure, in that sense, as the rest of us—for we cannot separate its safety from our own."

On November 27, 1958, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971), irritated that a German peace treaty had yet to be agreed on, threw Berlin into another crisis when he sent a letter to Western powers. The letter gave them six months to make substantial progress on a German peace treaty. If the Western powers did not accomplish this,...